


To Be Fearful of the Night

by Archaeopteryx



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Family, Found Family, Gaster Blaster AU, Gen, Metatemporal Mystery, alphys and undyne adopt mystery dragon kiddos, baby blasters, hijinks ensue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-11 04:44:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5614351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archaeopteryx/pseuds/Archaeopteryx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alphys finds a door in her laboratory that she doesn't recognize. Behind it, she finds two half-starved skeleton monsters, an abandoned office, and more questions than she knows how to answer.</p><p>Set pre-game, after the creation of the Amalgamates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue.

Alphys stared at the door, scowling.

It led to a private lab, she knew, one of the many that had been built when the Royal Scientist had been just one of many colleagues and coworkers.

She didn’t know what lay behind it, and that troubled her.

She paced back and forth before it, flapping her claws as she thought. Of course she didn’t know what lay behind it — she had never been back there. She didn’t have the authorization.

At least, her memory said so, but that made no sense. Alphys was, had always been, the Royal Scientist. This was her lab. She was authorized for everywhere. She shoved her claws up under her glasses, rubbing her eyes with an irritable chirrup. Whatever sense that something terrible would happen if she opened this door without permission was her anxiety, nothing more. Whose permission would she wait for?

She lowered her head, ramming her skull plate into the door. She scuffed the floor with a footclaw, huffing with satisfaction, and tapped in her access code.

The panel flashed red with a beep and the thunk of a lock.

Alphys reared back, blinking at it. She shook her head and tried again. Another red light, another beep. She bared her teeth, forced down the rising anxiety, and tried one last time, taking care each time she placed her claw.

Red light, beep, thunk.

Alphys whistled, anger suffusing anxiety, and headbutted the door again, just to make herself feel better. This door could flash red all it wanted. Alphys was no Undyne, but she had her own scrap of monstrous Determination, and this door would not stand in her way now her curiosity was invoked.

She would get this door open, if she had to blow a hole in her lab to do it.

***

A week later, Alphys’s scientific stubbornness was sorely frayed.

Mettaton came in with a glitch that would occasionally send him spinning out of control. While he enjoyed the occasional pirouette, this, he said, was a little too much. Alphys bit back a comment about anything being ‘too much’ for Mettaton, and another about him spinning just for the fun of it, and set about finding the source of the error. Between Mettaton’s flightiness and Alphys’s distraction, it took three days to get even a flimsy patch installed. 

Another day fell to grocery shopping, which quickly turned into “frantically avoiding Asgore at the market”. Who knew the King shopped at the same salvage-yard as everyone else? Well, Alphys had; she’d just lost track of the date. She ducked around a corner before Asgore saw her, then fled for the bathroom, chased by a cheerful greeting and a puzzled “ … Alphys? Was that you?”

It took her hours to talk herself home.

The rest of the week evaporated, between caring for the Amalgamates, UnderNet, and Alphys’s latest Mew Mew Kissy Cutie playthrough. She was trying to work, she told herself defensively, replaying the snail ice-cream chapter for the fourth time in a row. She just … couldn’t. Couldn’t summon the energy to work, or the willpower to concentrate through the fog in her head. Pushing at it didn’t get anywhere and only made her feel terrible, so why not take it easy? Maybe if she felt better she’d get something done.

The letters kept piling up. The Snowdrakes sent one every day. Alphys had stopped reading them a long time ago, but even looking at the stack made her stomach flip.

In the sporadic few minutes of progress she did manage to make on the door, she discovered that, as far as Hotland’s security was concerned, it didn’t exist. It had its own circuit and its own security system, disconnected from the rest of the lab. None of her passwords or overrides worked on any of it.

It slipped out of her mind at the slightest opportunity for a distraction. Half the time her intent to work on the puzzle dissolved the instant she sat down at her computer, as if the door didn’t want her to think about it. Well, that wasn’t anything new.

Another four days slipped by. Undyne called, asking where Alphys had been, which killed one whole day with intermittent anxiety attacks. Anxiety sublimated to frustrated energy and the impulse to throw herself into her work; Alphys turned off her phone, hid her Mew Mew Kissy Cutie CD in her bookshelf, and locked herself in her lab. She was — Mettaton always called her — the “brilliant Dr. Alphys”. she should do something to earn that title, for once. She knew her lab and Hotland’s security like her own claws.

The door couldn’t keep itself shut forever.


	2. Reach me down my Tycho Brahe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Young monsters, old notes, and a lot of trouble.

Alphys whooped when the door slid open, dropping her skullplate to buck enthusiastically. The echo of her voice and her excited stomping brought her back down; she coughed, glanced around sheepishly — though she was, as always, alone — and tugged at the lapels of her labcoat.

She took a few deep breaths and stepped into the hidden wing.

“H-hello?” she called. Her footsteps echoed like the drip of water; not even the hum of ventilation or lighting disturbed the stillness. Particles in the air tickled her nose. When she sneezed, the sound crashed like a cave-in. The blackness had a texture of its own — Alphys imagined she could feel it on her scales, slick like oil or sheer fabric. The light from the hallway barely penetrated.

Feeling through the inky darkness, her claws found a light switch, just barely within her reach — this lab had been designed for a much taller monster. The lights, when they flickered on, illuminated a long hall, floored in checkered tile like the rest of the lab. Two doors occupied the wall to her left. The wall on her right had only one. At the end, an open threshold, to what looked like an office of some kind.

An overpowering sense of dread set Alphys’s heart racing. She collapsed to her haunches, huddling against a wall with her claws over her muzzle, claws scrabbling at the floor before she simply curled into a ball. Breathe, she told herself firmly, and managed a wheezing breath in through her nostrils. Good, she told herself, and let it out. Breathe-two-three-four, good-two-three-four. She repeated the process until the panic attack abated, and clambered shakily to her feet.

“I-is anyone there?” she called again.

But nobody answered.

Alphys snorted, shaking her head. Just a creepy mystery wing off her lab, that she didn’t remember ever seeing, or who had worked here, or what they had worked on, even though this was her lab. A creepy mystery wing that she had needed two and a half weeks to hack into, even though her access code should have opened any door here. What could possibly go wrong?

Maybe she should have asked Undyne to come with her. Just in case.

She crept forward with her head lowered and nostrils flared, snorting at the dusty air. After a few steps, she quickened her pace to a trot. Her footclaws clicked against the tile. The sound ricocheted off the walls. Alphys felt like she was disturbing a tomb.

The office held a chair, half-pulled away from a desk; a filing cabinet, two drawers half-open and bulging with papers; and a bookshelf, in similar disarray. A computer monitor — the same as the ones in Alphys’s lab — held pride of place, flanked by two haphazard stacks of folders. A rubix cube weighted down one stack; a mug with a curious human logo held down the other. The desk itself stood at Alphys’s eye level — again, designed for a much taller monster, a tailless biped judging by the chair’s design. Alphys sniffed, then jumped up onto the chair, bracing her claws on the desk. She peered into the mug and recoiled with a cry: it had been left half-empty, its surface ringed with mold.

Two binder clips held together the twinned stacks of paper. Someone — the lab’s occupant? — had labelled the one at her left claw ‘SNS’, in painstakingly-serifed white-out. The one at her right claw read ‘PPR’, in the same script.

If not for the marks of time, the office’s occupant might have just stepped out. Who had worked here? There was no nameplate beside the door. Alphys ran a claw along the surface of the desk, cringing as she carved a line through the dust. It felt wrong, even if it was only ordinary dust, not — not someone. Nothing about this sat right with her.

On a whim, she pushed the power button on the computer. Somewhere, a fan whirred, clicking a few times before slipping into a smooth pattern. Alphys squeaked as the startup noise chimed, clapping her hands over her ears.

The monitor flickered to display a simple rebooting screen — then glitched, patchy snow racing through a thousand thousand iterations of what might have been a face. “COME JOIN THE FUN—JOIN THE FUN—JOIN THE FUN,” boomed a multitude of overlapping voices.

Alphys screamed, springing out of the chair. Off-balance, her claws slipped, and she collapsed on her tail. The monitor flickered again, then turned itself off, leaving only the buzz of the fluorescent lights and Alphys’s heaving breaths to fill the silence.

“Memoryheads!” Alphys spat. Her legs trembled as she pulled herself to all fours. “Really?” she cried at the ceiling, bunching her claws. “What was the point of that?”

The Memoryheads, as always, gave no answer, with nothing digital to channel themselves through. Alphys snorted.

“Typical,” she muttered. She shook herself and tugged her lab coat back into place, shying away from the dust that puffed away as she did so.

She sneezed three times in quick succession. Her activity had disturbed quite a lot of — particles, clogging her throat and making her eyes water. She tugged at her collar once more and hurried out of the office, casting only a cursory glance behind her as she left.

As she crossed the threshold of the office, the light flickered behind her.

Common sense told her to leave before she stumbled into something more dangerous than Memoryheads, and to come back with backup. Ideally, Undyne or Asgore as backup. Ideally, both of them … Alphys shook her head. Curiosity won out, and she reached for the lone door in the middle of the hallway. A simple touch-panel slid the door aside, but a glowing cyan laser field barred the way.

Something moved behind the haze of energy.

Alphys sprang back, slipping as her tail collided with the far wall. “Oh my god!” Heart pounding, she scrambled to all fours, creeping forward nervously. “Is — is someone there?”

A weak hiss answered her. She could almost make out two points of light, swallowed by the brilliant barriers of the lasers.

A few data points converged rapidly: the dust coating the lab was thick enough to be weeks old, at least. The pens and papers on the desk had been similarly covered, not to mention the mold in the mug. The air tasted stale, and what few traces of magic Alphys could sense converged on this room with a 1/x2 trend so neat she might have graphed it on a calculator. This lab had been empty for a long time — except for that someone, trapped behind a forcefield, and did they have anything to eat back there?

Alphys bounded forward, slamming her claws over the button on the wall. The lasers shut off with a clunk. She didn’t move for a second, bracing herself against the wall while she steadied her breaths. Then she peered into the room. “I-is someone there?”

The answering hiss rattled, long and low. Alphys swallowed.

“Oh my god.”

The room was barely bigger than a closet, the only illumination faint emergency lighting. Someone — two someones — curled up on the floor, a haphazard jumble of bones that Alphys had to squint to make sense of. Two skulls: one larger, long and slender, raised a slight centimeter off the floor and shaking with even that effort, with orange lights glowing in its eye sockets. The other, short and thick-jawed, slumped under its partner’s forelimb, its sockets dark. Four limbs for each of them, forelimbs long, hindlimbs short and stocky, the last digit on each forelimb stretched and thickened. On a monster with flesh, it might have supported a patagium; on a skeleton Alphys couldn’t fathom its purpose. Two whiplike tails, twined around each other.

They were small, their skulls a little too big for their bodies, their bones smooth and unfinished-looking. Children.

“Oh my god,” said Alphys again. “O-oh my god.” She took a step forward, reaching out one hand. The larger monster hissed at her, curling up around its companion. Alphys hopped back across the threshold, raising her claws. “S-sorry!”

The monster lowered its head to the tile, eyeglow dimming. A faint flicker persisted, following Alphys as she began to pace, muttering to herself and gesturing frantically.

She dragged her claws down her face, shaking her head. “W-w-what? Oh my god, who did this? What did they — how is this even here!” She flung her claws ceiling-ward, clutching her skull plate. “Oh my god! I-i-i’m going to find out whose f-fault this is and — and — have some r-really, really strong words with them!” Yellow magic blazed around her, sparks arcing between her claws and horns. “How did I not know about this! Oh my god, is this my fault? Did I — ” She spun on her heel and rammed her skull plate into the wall. “No,” she said, “no, Alphys, keep it together, breathe, this isn’t helping. Isn’t helping. What’ll help?”

A light kindled in the smaller monster’s sockets, yellow to match the Doctor’s. Its companion nuzzled it, whining softly. Remembering her audience, Alphys froze. She rubbed her face one last time, then fixed her glasses and turned back to the tiny cell.

“H-h-hi,” she said, anxious smile pasted on her face. “I-I’m Alphys. Doctor Alphys. Who are you?”

The yellow faded back to darkness. Orange-eyes forgot Alphys, nudging its companion with increasingly desperate cries.

“Oh no,” Alphys muttered. The sound drew orange-eyes’s attention again. Alphys straightened her shoulders and stretched out her claws, inching forwards. “I — I want to help you. Do you want to get out of here? I have f-food.” She swallowed. Cup noodles weren’t exactly ‘food’, but they were sustenance enough. “I won’t hurt you. I promise. Please let me help you. Your, your friend, is really sick, I think.” She swallowed again, inched forwards a little further. Orange-eyes didn’t protest, giving only an anxious whimper when Alphys crossed the threshold of the tiny room. She paused, holding up her claws, and made soothing sounds until orange-eyes quieted again.

If Alphys had one skill, it was the ability to babble on endlessly without saying much. She kept up a mindless stream of “hey”s and “shush”s and “it’s okay”s as she approached, then crouched by orange-eyes’s head. It whined, straining away from her weakly, claws scratching at the tile. Alphys shuffled back until it slumped, dropping its head to the floor once again.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. This close, she could finally feel the monsters’ magic: as she’d feared, they were both incredibly weak, with only the faintest embers of Bravery and Patience turned sour. Alphys’s magic sang softly, suffusing the room with yellow Justice. Bravery answered. Orange-eyes’s tail-tip twitched. Alphys stretched out her hand slowly. “C-can I?”

Orange-eyes huffed, a strange accomplishment without lungs or larynx, and slumped against the floor. Alphys stroked a brow ridge carefully, admiring the texture — they really were skeletons, and this really was bone, not flesh or polished scale. She winced when her claws rasped along the surface, but orange-eyes whistled softly, turning its head into her hand.

“Shh,” she murmured. “You’re safe now. I won’t hurt you.”

Orange Bravery faded, first to plain white pinpricks in the sockets, then to nothing at all. Alphys kept petting, kept shushing, watching carefully for any sign of fear or startlement. When she was satisfied that orange-eyes was soundly asleep, she gathered both monsters into her arms, a clumsy tangle of collapsed bone and long, floppy limbs. They were light, at least, desperately so, but it meant that even Alphys could carry them without much difficulty.

A whisper of orange magic touched her own. Alphys harmonized her own Yellow, calling on threads of Kindness and Integrity to fill out her chords: all is right now. You are safe. No need for Bravery; there is nothing here to fear.

Orange shifted to Blue, then faded again. The monster slumped in her arms, nuzzling into its companion. Alphys hurried on towards the cluttered safety and the bright fluorescent light of her own lab. Any excuse to be out of this abandoned workspace was good enough, and she had the children to worry about.

She kicked the door to the mystery wing shut with an emphatic “Ha!” as she left. Her pace quickened to a smooth trot, mindful of the small monsters cradled in her arms.

Behind the closed door, in the empty wing, the lights went out.


	3. I would know him when we meet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introductions are made.

Orange-eyes whined when Alphys deposited the children in a lab bed. Alphys bit her lip.

“I’m s-sorry,” she said, patting the monster’s crest. “I’ll b-be right back, okay? I’m just getting you some f-food.”

She started to move away, but orange-eyes whined, catching its claws in the pocket of her lab coat. Alphys gulped and disentangled herself as gently as she could.

“You take good care of your friend, okay? I’ll be right back. I promise.”

Plaintive whistles followed her out of the room.

Alphys broke into a trot as soon as she was out of sight, shaking her head. It was stress making her glasses misty, not sentiment. Definitely not the monster’s cries tugging at dark places in her mind.

“It’s not like — ” she muttered to herself, flapping her hands against her chest. “I’m not leaving! I just need to, need to … ”

… not fail these children, like she had everyone else. Alphys swallowed, and hummed the Mew Mew Kissy Cutie theme song until her thoughts shut off.

The elevator ride felt interminable. Alphys flinched when the doors opened, then ran, racing to gather as many cup noodles as she could. She hooked the handle of her water heater over her tail and bounced on her toes until it hung a little less precariously; it would do. Her phone’s dimensional boxes and her pockets filled, she looked around, biting her lip.

Her phone buzzed. Alphys yelped and jumped. One of her cup noodles fell from a pocket, rolling across the floor. Alphys bit her lip; she’d pick it up later.

She’d check her phone later, too. She hurried back into the elevator, and spent a moment shifting objects between her hands before she gave up and pressed the button with her muzzle.

Her claws tapped the floor as she rode. The nervous motion only transferred itself to tail-twitches and head shakes when the elevator doors swished open and she trotted forward into the lab. She stopped in the main room only briefly, to empty her pockets of cup noodles. The children slept, their eyesockets dark and their tails twined together, a small blessing. Their magics hummed against each other in quiet, easy harmony.

Alphys paused in the threshold, watching them for just a moment. She took a deep breath. Adrenaline coiled in her belly. She wanted to be sick, a little. She needed to slow down.

She forced herself to a slow trot when she left. Her claws tapped against her thighs, counting out a steady rhythm. She stopped by the sinks, shooing Reaper Bird from its curious pecking at the drain so she could fill up her water heater. She'd fish that key out someday, but right now she had bigger concerns. As an afterthought, she stopped by the vending machine to buy herself a soda and some chisps.

A thin scream shattered her calm. She shoved the soda into her pocket and bolted. Water slopped over her claws when she skidded into the room, heart pounding in her throat. “W-what’s wrong? What happened?”

Orange-eyes crouched over its companion, jaw agape, facing off with a thin, pale Amalgamate. As Alphys skidded into the room, it screamed again, high-pitched and rasping like nails on a chalkboard. Its jaw split into two discrete parts. A glow sputtered and died in what would have been its throat, and it coughed, hacking up a couple of bluish sparks.

Tucker burbled in dismay, reaching once more for the covers. Orange-eyes gaped its jaw again, but its limbs trembled.

“Stop!”

Orange-eyes collapsed with a whine. Alphys paused to set down the water heater, then hurried forward, flapping her claws.

“Tucker, shoo — shoo, you’re scaring them. I know, I know, you were just trying to help. Let me, let me handle this, okay?”

Tucker burbled and sank, stretching itself into a thin layer that dissolved into the tile. Alphys sighed.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the children. “Tucker’s a big softie, really. It wouldn’t hurt you. I -- I wouldn’t let it.” Orange-eyes whined again, shivering. Scattered scorch-marks on the floor suggested that a few attacks had gone off successfully. Alphys swallowed. She didn’t think either of them had the magic to spare. “I’ve got food — I’ll, I’ll get you some right away, okay?”

She had the cup noodles, but that would take time she didn’t want to waste. She ripped open the bag of chisps with a claw and offered one to the monster. Orange-eyes eyed it suspiciously.

“T-they’re good! See? Mm!” Alphys popped the chisp into her mouth, making a show of enjoying it. She wasn’t a very good actor. “Go ahead,” she said, offering another chisp.

Orange-eyes snapped it out of her hand so fast she squeaked. It blinked — its eyeglow winked out for a moment — then lunged, yanking the entire bag from her hand. It swung its head around, nudging the mouth of the bag into its companion’s muzzle with a plaintive whistle. The smaller monster didn’t stir.

“Oh no,” Alphys murmured. “H-hey, um — ” She reached for the bag. Orange-eyes snapped at her. She recoiled. “I can … help … ?”

Orange-eyes ignored her. Its whining grew more desperate as it pawed at its companion’s muzzle. Alphys swallowed and backed off, taking a few minutes to set up the water heater and chug her soda.

When she got back, orange-eyes had slumped, one wing-arm draped over its companion. Its eyelight swiveled to track Alphys’s hands, but it didn’t protest when she reached for the bag of chisps. “I’m just trying to help,” Alphys said quietly.

She fed the smaller monster chisps a few at a time, crushing them in her claws to make them easier to absorb. Halfway through the bag, its eyelight kindled. It snapped the bag from her hand, shook it like a prey animal, and swallowed it whole. The crumpled, empty plastic dropped out through the bottom of its jaw.

Alphys giggled. “Good job!” she said, flapping her claws. Both monsters looked at her, their heads cocking in unison. “Good job — do you have names?”

The large monster’s eyeglow brightened, deep Integrity blue. “Rrr — rrahnss,” it pronounced with difficulty, tapping its companion’s skull with its muzzle.

The smaller monster raised its head, nudging the larger’s sternum. “Rrrrahhhyrus.”

Alphys blinked, then squinted. Her lips moved soundlessly as she worked backwards, correcting for vocal anatomy. Twin binder clips, labelled in white-out, flashed in her mind’s eye; her heart sank. “S … sans,” she tried, pointing at the smaller monster. It bobbed its head. Emboldened, she pointed at the larger. “Papyrus … ?” It nodded. Alphys clapped her hands, beaming. “Sans and Papyrus! Lovely to meet you! I mean, um — the circumstances aren’t very — but I’m glad to — ”

The water heater beeped, saving Alphys from her scrambling. She hurried to prepare a few packets of cup noodles, returning with a few steaming bowls balanced precariously in her arms.

“I’m Alphys,” she said, setting the bowls down on the bed. “Doctor Alphys. She-her. Careful, that’s — ”

Papyrus stretched its head over to sniff at the rising steam. Without hesitating, it shoved its snout into the near-boiling water, crunching the noodle rectangle in its jaws.

“ … hot,” Alphys finished weakly. Papyrus seemed none the worse for wear, eyeing the remaining two bowls with interest. Alphys sighed, and nudged them towards the monsters. “What about you? Pronouns? Sie-hir, they-them, she-her, he-him — ”

Sans chirruped.

“He-him?”

Sans chirruped again, then tilted his head towards Papyrus.

“Him too?”

Sans bobbed his head.

“Alright!” Alphys clapped again. “Good to know! Uh, you both should, eat some more, I’ll just … ”

The children ate their way through most of Alphys’s noodle supply without stopping, though by the end she had persuaded them to let the noodles soften first. Their eyeglows brightened as their magic strengthened and their energy visibly improved, until even Sans looked around the room curiously and listened to Alphys’s meandering explanations.

“Uh, t-the monster you met, that’s Tucker, it’s an Amalgamate — they’re, well — it’s a long story — but they’re friendly, is the most important thing! Even Lemon Bread doesn’t mean any harm, it’s just … T-there’s a few others. Reaper Bird, Endogeny, the Memoryheads … I c-can introduce you! Later. If you’re up to it, I mean. Maybe not the Memoryheads … ”

Eventually, the children’s appetites waned — Alphys had to wonder where they put all that food, without stomachs — and they began to droop, yawning. Alphys found their weariness contagious, and stifled a few yawns herself. With the immediate danger past, she was more than happy to let the children — pups? fledglings? — curl up together and hum each other to sleep.

The combination of silence, exhaustion, and the aftermath of stress sent her mind to a dark place. She counted her breaths, clenched and unclenched her fists, and sighed heavily.

“You s-shouldn’t get attached to me,” she said. Her shoulders hunched. “I’m not a good person. All I do is hurt people.”

Papyrus’s magic glowed bright blue. He chirruped, headbutting her hip. Alphys smiled weakly.

“Thanks, but n-no. I really … ” She took a deep breath. “Even when I try to help people, it just … anyway, I don’t know anything about kids. I c-can’t take care of you.” She had babysat, back when she’d been a teenager. That was all the experience she had. She giggled, a little hysterical. “I bet As-Asgore would adopt you. He loves kids. He loves everybody.”

Adrenaline hit her system like a thunderbolt. Asgore couldn’t know about these children. No one could. Not until Alphys had some answers for them.

This was her lab. These children had been hurt, imprisoned, and then abandoned in her lab, and she had no idea who was responsible, or how they’d worked without her knowledge. She knew what she had found, but with no explanation it sounded like a flimsy excuse — anyone she told would think she had done this. By the Angel, Alphys would think she had done this, if someone told her the story.

Something else to lie about. Alphys giggled again, then sniffled, wiping away the beginnings of tears. “I’m r-really not a good person,” she told the dozing children. “But I’ll protect you. I’ll do my best. How does that sound?”

Papyrus hummed, blue Integrity open and clean. Alphys sniffed, smiling.

“Well,” she said, patting his crest, “you believe in me. That’s a start.”

***

ALPHYS updated status:  
Anybody know anything about puppy care??? I, uh, found some pups in, the dump … i think they were abandoned, uh, i took them home and got them to eat but they’re pretty skittish

STRONGFISH91 commented:  
oh my GOD??? I am SEETHING WHO DOES THAT !!!!!

STRONGFISH91 commented:  
The dogs in the Guard had some ideas, hang on i’ll message them

STRONGFISH91 commented:  
SERIOUSLY SOMEONE LEFT THEIR KIDS IN THE DUMP??? I’M GONNA FREAKING KILL THEM!!!!!

ALPHYS commented:  
I don’t know who left them but you’re right! They’re a really terrible person! Whoever they are!

STRONGFISH91 commented:  
hey!! can I meet them?

STRONGFISH91 commented:  
* the puppies

ALPHYS commented:  
Uhh, they’re still in pretty rough shape! And really nervous … maybe in a while? A long while.

ALPHYS updated status:  
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I’m not ready for kids!!!!!!!!

***

MESSAGE FROM: STRONGFISH91

msg me if u need help translating

i think they let GD write some of this

[Attached file: puppy_info.rtf]

***

New text message from: Unknown, 00/00/00

beware the man who speaks in hands.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first night is rough.

Alphys spent the rest of the evening chatting with Undyne, then read fanfiction on her phone until anxiety converted itself into frustration and two-thirds of an Undernet rant about mischaracterization written in her head. The brothers slept soundly, undisturbed by her occasional stifled laugh or squeak. When her eyelids drooped and her vision lost focus, she stumbled to the wall, slapped vaguely until she hit the light switch, then crawled onto a spare bed and slipped into an uneasy doze. Half-conscious memories and imaginings slipped through her head like smoke; nothing solid enough to qualify as a nightmare.

When she did wake, it was to a frightened cry, so shrill she almost mistook it for part of her dream. “What?” she mumbled, groping for her glasses before realizing she had left them on her face. The cry sounded again, panicky and desperate. Still dazed, Alphys flopped out of bed and shook herself. Magic lit her claws, giving her just enough light to see.

Patience magic glowed, dull and discordant in a way that made Alphys’s guts twist. Papyrus cried again, his voice sharp, but streaks of orange Bravery soured the chord.

“K-kids? Papyrus, Sans? What’s wrong?”

Papyrus’s head snapped up. His eyeglow blazed, strobing between orange and blue, and his jaw gaped as if he couldn’t be bothered to close it. Alphys shrank back a little, then pushed herself forward, stretching out one hand.

“Shh,” she said. “You’re safe — it’s okay. You’re safe now.”

Papyrus whined, then shoved his skull into her claws. He shook like a leaf, his ribcage rattling. Alphys ran her claws over his crest. Papyrus shuddered.

“W-what’s wrong?” Alphys repeated. Papyrus withdrew, raising his forelimb to give Alphys a clear look at Sans. Her mouth went dry. “Oh no.”

The smaller skeleton lay absolutely still, without even a flicker of eyeglow. Papyrus’s ribcage flexed, heaving breaths or at least presenting an illusion of doing so. Sans’s didn’t move. If not for the dull burn of Patience magic, Alphys would have thought he’d already fallen down, and even that was fading fast.

“O-o-oh god,” said Alphys, her face and claws numb. “Oh my g-god — ” Stupid, stupid, stupid, the word bounced inside her skull like the Memoryheads’ shouting. She’d thought the children would be okay once they’d eaten, but of course it wasn’t so easy. She should never have left her watch.

Papyrus shrieked, Bravery glowing lantern-bright in his eyes and through his ribs. He grabbed Sans’s crest in his jaws, shaking his brother frantically. A switch flipped at the bottom of Alphys’s soul, and numb static turned to current.

“L-let me,” she said, stepping forward. Papyrus bristled, staring at Alphys’s hands. “I w-won’t hurt him. I can help.” I think, Alphys didn’t add. Papyrus released his brother and shrank aside with a quiet whine. “I-i know,” said Alphys, “I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. But w-we can do this! He’ll be okay! I promise!” She tried not to think of the last time she’d promised, or the last time she’d said anything would be okay. She had taken these children into her charge — however temporarily. She owed them to try.

Alphys rolled up her sleeves, and turned to Sans. Globes of lightning flickered in her claws, casting the bed and the skeleton monsters in stark Justice-yellow shadow. “C-can you hear me?” she asked. “Y-you’re really sick. I’m going to try to help.”

Sans didn’t respond. Alphys swallowed.

“No,” she said aloud, and pressed her claws against Sans’s sternum.

He jerked. The barest whisper of light kindled behind his eyesockets. It guttered like a damp candle, and threatened to go out.

“No!” Alphys repeated. She grit her teeth and summoned another pulse of magic, as bright and loud a chord as she could. “You will not fall down! Not on my watch!”

She was acting on a long shot. Papyrus’s magic hadn’t taken, but maybe Bravery was out of reach for Sans right now. Alphys only hoped her Justice would call to Sans’s own, and maybe rouse some hope in him.

A thread of something gleamed under all that smothering Patience. Alphys shook her head, blinking back the sweat that dripped into her eyes, and reached for her magic once more. Justice came easy, a strong current of right and wrong, confidence and change. Other magics slipped out of her grasp, more than she could focus on. Sans jerked again, his little candle brightening, but the Patience seeped in again like tar as Alphys’s magic faded.

“Don’t you dare,” Alphys gasped, shutting her eyes against the sting of sweat. “I won’t let you! Not like this!” With a growl, she summoned another pulse of magic. The current surged through her claws and into Sans’s sternum, this time as a series of smaller shocks in time with Alphys’s own heartbeat. It wasn’t enough. Alphys’s magic strengthened the yellow core, but the Patience still layered thick around it. If she couldn’t dislodge it, Sans would just keep fading, and she couldn’t shift it alone.

Then again, she wasn’t.

“P-pap — Papyrus,” she rasped. She didn’t even need to ask.

The young monster whistled, nuzzling his brother’s shoulder. Bravery and Integrity thundered forth to join Alphys’s lightning, clear and loud — and wonder of wonders, Sans’s magic flickered in answer.

“Yes!” Alphys cried. Elation gave her a second wind. She shifted one hand, reaching out blindly, and found Papyrus’s scapula, completing the circuit. Papyrus’s magic bolstered his brother’s, using the link Alphys had opened; Alphys modulated her own to match his, and found her frequency resonating with Sans’s in a way it hadn’t before. Blue Integrity lent depth and shadow to the whole working, seeped under and through the sick Patience and peeled back layer after layer like hard rain or industrial solvent.

Sans reached back along the link, his magic weak and shaky but growing brighter by the second. Alphys matched him pitch for pitch.

“C-come on,” she coaxed. She was approaching her limits; she hadn’t used this much magic in years. “Come on! You’re doing great, Sans, d-d-don’t give up. You’re s-safe. I promised, remember?” Papyrus whistled, a long call with a trill at the end, backing up Alphys’s voice.

Slowly, so slowly, but with a stubbornness Alphys knew all too well, Sans’s magic stabilized. He picked up his head, eyeglow blinking, and chirruped quietly.

“Oh, god,” Alphys breathed. She closed her eyes, concentrating as she pulled back her magic. She debated leaving the link in place, but she was almost drained herself, and she didn’t want to infect Sans with her own oft-haywire sense of Justice. Energy that Alphys couldn’t reclaim funneled into another flashlight-globe, the simple construct hovering in her palm. Papyrus followed Alphys’s cue, withdrawing his magical support where it was no longer needed. He kept up a quiet hum of Bravery, even as the working disengaged. Sans recalled his own magic, humming back.

Alphys sighed, tension draining from her body like someone had pulled a stopper. Papyrus had less restraint; he flopped onto his brother with a happy cry, pawing at Sans’s face and shoulders until Sans rolled onto his back, pleading mercy. Alphys took the opportunity to let her legs buckle, slumping to the floor with a giggle.

“W-we did it,” she said, mostly to herself. Her free claw flapped, almost of its own accord. “We did it! Y-you’re okay! You’re … okay … ”

She trailed off. Her voice had drawn the brothers’ attention, and they both stared fixedly at the globe of lightning in her claws. Their eyes glowed, bright and pinpricked and almost — Alphys couldn’t put a name to it. Desperate. Hungry.

“Oh, no,” she murmured aloud. The bottom dropped out of her stomach. She fished her phone from her pocket and turned on the flashlight, leaving it face-up on the bed. “J-j-just a moment,” she said, faking her best smile, “I-i-i’ll be right back — ”

She bolted for the light switch and slammed it as if force could make the fluorescents brighter. The brothers startled, scanning the room as if it was unfamiliar. Alphys bit her lip. What had they been expecting to see?

She made her way back across the room tentatively, her legs shaking. The brothers paid her little attention — Papyrus chattered on in their shared language, pausing occasionally to wait for Sans’s quiet whistle before continuing. It was probably for the better, Alphys thought. She heaved herself onto the bed she’d been using, tucking her legs under her belly, and dragged her claws down her face.

“Oh, god,” she mumbled, “oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god.”

She’d be fine. She just — needed a minute.

She didn’t get one.

Papyrus whistled. Alphys pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Her heart pounded, her own magic sparking through her nerves like electric barbed wire. Papyrus whistled again, worried. Alphys shook her head, whimpering as pressure built in her skull. Her face felt numb, her chest hollow, her hands tingling.

“I-i’m s-s-sorry,” she choked. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” oh god, why now? Her rapidly-fading rational side said this was the way she reacted to stress, and she’d been under a huge amount of that in the last twenty-four hours. More like twelve, honestly —

She’d known these children for less than twelve hours and she’d already almost killed them, said her panic. And now she was melting down in front of them, scaring them, when they’d already been through so much. She’d made a promise and then she’d turned off the light, barely a few hours after she’d found them in the dark, she hadn’t had the sense to make the obvious connection, and if she’d been a little slower to wake, a fraction slower to act, Sans would be — Sans would — how could she claim to be any better than the person who’d left them in the dark in the first place?

Alphys slapped herself. The sting cleared her head; she did it again, then balled up her hands, digging her claws into her palms. She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose, scraped out the magic wreaking havoc in her extremities, and opened her hands, releasing the pent-up energy in an arc between her palms. When she opened her eyes, the brothers were staring at her.

Sans whistled, his voice lower and softer than his brother’s.

“I-i-it’s okay!” said Alphys, plastering on a smile. She wiped her eyes, not that it did much but smear tears around. “I’m okay. S-s-sorry. I’m sorry. You didn’t — didn’t do anything wrong — y-you both did really well! I j-just, just … ”

She trailed off, floundering for words that wouldn’t sound like excuses. She didn’t find any.

“I-it was the dark that, um, scared you, right?” she asked, ducking her head and lacing her claws together. The brothers looked at each other. Papyrus nodded; Sans shook his head. A moment later, Sans nodded, just as Papyrus shook his head. Papyrus snapped at him playfully, tail twitching. Alphys pressed her palms into her eyes, inhaling shakily. “Well,” she said, “I’m just glad y-you’re okay. It’s not gonna be dark anymore, okay? A-and you can go wherever you want.” I promise, she didn’t add, because the lab had the occasional power failure and she’d broken enough promises for several lifetimes.

Sans bobbed his head, his eyelight wide and pale. Papyrus whistled.

The silence grew very awkward, very fast. Alphys’s collar stuck to the back of her neck, sweat-soaked.

“Well!” Alphys exclaimed. She pressed her palms together, hopping off the bed. “I, I don’t think, any of us is going to get much more sleep, so, would you, um — would you like me to show you around?”

Papyrus perked up, hopping to the floor with a startlingly smooth movement. Sans just rolled over until gravity took care of the matter, pulling himself to his feet with an exaggerated groan. Alphys smiled a little, despite herself.

“C-come on! I’ll, um, introduce you to the Amalgamates!”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some friends are made, and Alphys does some thinking.

“Okay,” said Alphys. “Okay.” Her stomach gurgled, and she jumped. “L-let’s, uh, how about we all eat something?”

‘Something’ meant more cup noodles. Despite all the magic she had burned, she only managed a packet and a half, her throat tight and twisting with anxiety. She put down her cup and sighed, rubbing her eyes.

A clatter of plastic startled her into looking down. Sans had his snout buried in the cup. He cocked his head at her, eyelight flashing, and finished slurping up her leftovers with as big a yawn as his stubby jaw could manage. He had some very, very sharp teeth; Alphys ran her tongue over her own, self-conscious. Her front teeth and molars were meant to shear and grind plant matter, not meat.

Papyrus squeaked in outrage and charged his brother, shouldering him away from Alphys’s already-empty cup. Alphys giggled, flapping her claws. “I-it’s okay, I was done a-anyway.”

Papyrus ended his chatter of chirps and squeaks with a grouchy mumble. Sans chirruped, somehow managing to look smug with only a skull. Papyrus smacked him with his tail. Alphys laughed, then clapped a hand over her mouth, startled by the unfamiliar sound.

A low roar rattled the fluorescent lights overhead. The brothers jumped together, craning their heads upwards. Alphys smiled and clambered to her feet. Her vision fuzzed; she wobbled, shaking her head until her blood pressure stabilized. “That’s just Lemon Bread,” she said. “They’re, uh, really mostly harmless, they just get, uh, cranky when they’re hungry. Come on, I’ll — I’ll introduce you to everybody!”

The brothers looked at each other. Papyrus whistled, apparently speaking for both of them. Alphys brightened, flapping her claws together, and led the way, slowing her pace so the smaller skeletons could follow behind her.

Maybe this would work out after all.

***

The brothers kept close at her heels as Alphys trotted around the lab, setting up the Amalgamates’ feeding stations. She wasn’t used to having an audience, but talking to herself had become habit; she just expanded her self-directed ‘you’s and ‘we’s to include the brothers as she explained what she was doing — not that any of it was technically complicated.

Sans, at least, seemed to take an interest in the process. Whenever Alphys glanced back, his eyelight focused on her intently, wide and bright. Papyrus seemed more interested in pouncing on his shadow or chirping at his own echo in the tiled halls, though that didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t listening.

With a familiar routine on her mind, she could almost forget everything else that was strange about the brothers.

The air in the fan room had a milky quality to it, like the mist between Waterfall and Snowdin. Alphys flipped the switch off, waited for the air to still, then turned the fans back on. The particles in the air coalesced briefly into a bipedal shape before melting into Endogeny’s usual mass of legs and fur.

“H-hi!” Alphys reached out her hand to a fleck of Level 3 Affection Froth, and flicked a spark back to the Amalgamate. Endogeny sniffed the spark, then swallowed it. Its tail wagged, spraying flecks of itself onto the walls.

Sans hummed, and tapped the ground with his tail-tip. A tiny bone rose from the tile and slid towards Endogeny, who barked at it furiously before batting it with a paw. Papyrus pranced past Alphys without showing any fear at all, and gave a passable imitation of Endogeny’s own bark.

Endogeny’s ears pricked up. It lowered its head until its facial orifice threatened to engulf the smaller monster whole, then gave a tremendous sniff. Papyrus sniffed back, unperturbed, then bounced in a quick figure-eight on the tile. Endogeny barked again and ducked into a play-bow, tail wagging even faster than before. Alphys let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“Y-you two get along!” she called. “Um, Endogeny, f-f-food’s where it usually is. Don’t play too rough, okay?”

Endogeny barked. Papyrus whistled. Alphys shrugged, then looked down, tappping her claws together.

“S-sans? You don’t want to play?”

The smaller skeleton sat back on his haunches, running his forepaws over his skull as if grooming himself like a moth might. Alphys took that as a ‘no’. He seemed happy enough to watch his brother and the Amalgamate chase each others’ tails. At least, his magic hummed in simple harmony, last night’s dull discord a far-off memory.

Last night. Alphys cleaned her glasses and coughed. “T-that’s okay. I don’t have that much energy, either, m-most of the time.” She shifted her weight, tapping her claws against the floor. “Um, Sans, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Sans stiffened. He cocked his head at her, whistling. If Alphys hadn’t known what to look for, she never would have known anything was wrong.

“It’s nothing bad!” she hurried to add. “Well — you didn’t do anything — um.” She coughed again, calling off that entire sentence. She tried a few phrases in her head, then went ahead without preamble. “Your soul is sick.”

Sans’s tail twitched, and his eyeglow dimmed, tinting teal. Alphys bit her lip.

“It’s okay! It’s, um, normal,” she said, tapping her claws together. “It happens when a monster is scared, or hurt, or sad, or stressed, for a long time. Your magic is out of balance. I … I have a soul-sickness, too.”

Sans picked his head up at that. His eyelight constricted, brightening. He whistled, with a curious rise at the end.

Alphys nodded. “It’s not something to be, to be scared or ashamed of. But, um … it is … it hurts. A lot. And it can … it can kill you, if it gets too bad. Well. You know that.” She sighed, looking at the floor. “What I mean is … I know a lot about souls, but I’m not a medical doctor or a healer. But I want to help you, however I can. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

Sans bobbed his head. Alphys nodded. At the end of the hall, Endogeny flopped to its side, panting. Papyrus nosed one of its faces, whistling curiously, then trotted back to his brother.

“W-we can talk more later,” Alphys told Sans. He nodded.

***

Lemon Bread reared up out of its knot with a shriek. Alphys clapped her hands over her ears; Papyrus leapt in front of Sans, his eyelight bright, his tail stiff. Sans’s eyelight flickered.

“WHO IS THAT/WHO IS THAT/WHO IS THAT,” Lemon Bread roared. It spat a volley of teeth. Alphys flinched and threw up her magic, catching the bullets in a net of electricity.

“U-um, this is Sans, and this is Papyrus,” she stammered. “They’re going to be st-staying here, for a while.” For a while, she thought, biting her lip. Not forever, not when they needed so much that Alphys couldn’t — didn’t know how to — give them. She shoved that mess of thought aside for later. “Sans, Papyrus, this is, uh, Lemon Bread.”

“Go away/Go away/Go away,” said Lemon Bread, twisting back in on itself. Alphys sighed. Papyrus whined.

“I put out food,” said Alphys. “You can come get it, um, whenever.”

Lemon Bread gurgled, condensing even further. Alphys turned to leave. Papyrus stuck close to her heels, but Sans didn’t move.

“Um, Sans?”

He cocked his head, staring at the Amalgamate. Lemon Bread bared a single tooth to hiss. Sans didn’t even flinch. Apparently satisfied, he got up, loping after Alphys and his brother.

***

Papyrus bounced at the table of flowers, scrabbling with his forelimbs to drag himself up. Alphys turned at the clatter of pottery. Her eyes widened; she hurried back to the table with her claws flapping. “No, no, no! Um! Please don’t touch that!”

Papyrus froze, his eyelight constricting to a pinprick.

“Um,” said Alphys. Behind her, Sans whined softly. “Papyrus?”

Papyrus’s tail crept forward, tucking between his hind legs.

“I-i’m sorry, I didn’t … It’s okay.” Alphys hunched her shoulders. “Just, those are part of some work I was doing, s-so you maybe shouldn’t … touch them … ” She trailed off. Determination was unstable stuff, and any residue should have dissipated by now, but the single empty flowerpot in the middle still haunted her.

Sans whistled. Papyrus’s eyelight brightened, and his tail twitched. He dropped to the floor and chirruped, pouncing at Alphys’s ankles. Sans headbutted him in the shoulder. Alphys smiled despite herself; at least someone down here had some innate resilience, though part of her couldn’t believe that Papyrus really brushed things off as easily as he seemed to.

Alphys twisted her hands together, tapping her footclaws against the tile. “Let’s, um, let’s keep going then! It’s just a little farther.”

A few steps further down the corridor, Reaper Bird peeled away from its camouflage in the mirror with a sucking gurgle. Alphys waved nervously; Reaper Bird blinked its eye at her, then cocked its head at the two skeletons.

The Amalgamate croaked, coughing out a pair of moths to land on their snouts. Sans went cross-eyed and sneezed. Papyrus squawked, snapping at the insect, and jumping for it as it fluttered out of reach. He moved like a pole-vaulter, launching off his long forelimbs. His wing-digits rowed at the air without much effect.

Just what were the brothers, anyway? Alphys wondered. She settled back onto her haunches to watch them. Reaper Bird spat more moths for them to chase with an amused creak, though Sans preferred to wait for them to come close before smacking them with his tail. Their skulls looked reptilian, but the teeth were almost feline or mustelid, and she couldn’t place the wings at all. Their voices sounded birdlike, except when they sounded like dogs, and Papyrus’s mimicry didn’t help at all.

Her thoughts turned to the dark hallway, the mystery door; the office, with its thick coating of dust, its scattered files, its coffee-cup left as if someone had gotten up for a moment and never come back. Could the files, or the doors she’d left untouched, offer some clue to the mystery?

She really, really didn’t want to go back in there without backup. But backup, at this point, meant explaining to Undyne or Asgore what had happened, and Alphys couldn’t do that.

… but she’d need to tell someone, at some point. The brothers needed to see a proper medical doctor, and Alphys needed to give them to someone who could take care of them properly.

… but how would she ever explain herself?

A whistle sounded at her feet. Alphys jumped, scuttling backwards, before she realized it was just Sans. She smiled weakly, and rubbed her skull plate. This whole mess gave her a headache. “J-just thinking,” she said. “R-ready to go? I t-think you’ll like Snowy.”

***

“Wait here,” she told the brothers, outside the room with the DT Extractor. “I, um, I don’t think you’ll like this room.” The machine unnerved her, and she’d worked with it; she had no idea how the it would affect the brothers. Papyrus whined; Sans just put his head down on his foreclaws, but they seemed okay. Alphys shifted her weight, glancing nervously between the brothers and the room ahead, then darted through the door.

She cast a sour look at the DT Extractor as she scurried past. Not as if the thing had brought her anything but trouble.

The sample refrigerators loomed at her like they were trying to remind her of her mistakes. The drone of the air compressors clogged her mind, made it hard for her to think. Alphys cringed away from them and hurried towards the end, hoping to get this over with.

She tapped on the final fridge lightly. “H-hello?”

The door popped open, just a crack. Powdery snow poured from the gap, more than the refrigerator should have held. As the snow piled up, it compressed and melted together, acquiring color and substance until Snowy stood shakily in front of her. A single snowflake drifted past, almost out of Alphys’s reach. She stretched up a claw to catch it, and sent back one of her sparks in return.

“Sno … wy … ” the Amalgamate slurred. Alphys gulped.

“N-no, it’s — it’s just me. Doctor Alphys.”

Snowy wilted. Alphys squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath.

“I’ve, um, got some food for you. And, there’s somebody who I’d like you to meet!”

“Sno … wy … ?”

“N-no, ma’am, um … Your family can’t see you right now, remember? You’re n-not well.” The half-truth tasted bitter. Alphys’s magic knotted around her throat and stomach, sharp as barbed wire. “W-will you follow me?” She offered her arm, cautiously pulling her sleeve over her hand. Most of the Amalgamates had stabilized, more or less, so touching them shouldn’t be dangerous, but Alphys still didn’t want to risk it.

Snowy flapped a fibrous wing-approximation onto Alphys’s arm. It weighed nothing at all, but seemed to get some benefit out of her support. A plaintive whistle sounded from the door.

“J-just a minute!” Alphys called. “T-that’s them, see? C-come on, now, one, um … one pseudopod in front of the other.”

Snowy moved slowly, but with Alphys’s support she brought it out into the hallway where the brothers waited. Sans picked his head up, whistling a greeting. Papyrus stopped chasing his tail, then darted forward to do laps around Alphys’s ankles. She squeaked, but couldn’t move out of the way without pulling Snowy over with her.

“Sno … wy … ”

The brothers looked at Alphys, cocking their heads in unison.

“Um, Sans, Papyrus, this is Snowy! Snowy, this is … ” Alphys swallowed. A small flurry filled the hallway, with a chill breeze that made her shiver. Papyrus stopped in his tracks, staring at the snow with his eyelights bright. Sans snapped at the flakes, then coughed as they dissolved into magic.

“Hi … ” Snowy rasped, lifting its free wing weakly. It sank to the floor, stretching out tendrils of frost towards the brothers. Papyrus stretched out his neck, sniffing the frost dubiously. After watching his brother for a moment, Sans did the same.

Alphys held her breath.

“Oh … ” said Snowy, very softly.

The flurry in the hall strengthened. Snowy’s magic sounded like a winter wind, rattling ice-coated branches, the rustle of snow blowing into drifts. The brothers stared. Papyrus craned his neck, sniffing the flakes that tumbled in the air. Sans’s eyeglow blinked, slowly, before he flopped sideways into a miniature drift with a plume of magical snow. Papyrus pounced on him, and they tumbled over each other, spraying both Alphys and the Amalgamate with snow.

“Ha … ha … ” Snowy’s face solidified into a soft smile. Alphys let out her breath, shivering as it puffed in front of her face.

Integrity magic pinged. A blue-tinged Papyrus rose from the snow pile with a squeak, and was unceremoniously dropped into the deepest drift. Sans picked himself up, shaking himself with a smug chirrup. Magic pinged again; Sans turned blue, and collapsed into the drift he’d just risen from with an undignified squawk. Alphys covered her mouth, stifling a giggle which quickly turned into a sneeze.

The brothers froze, staring at her. Alphys blinked back at them. The cold made her eyes water. “I-it’s okay,” she said, uncertainly. “I’m … sorry … ?”

Snowy’s magic blew around them, the wind whistling through the snow. Papyrus tilted his head back, and howled.

Alphys’s heart pounded, but Papyrus wasn’t answering her. The cry blended with Snowy’s magic, echoing as if it really did belong in a wintry forest, halfway between a wolf’s howl and an owl’s shrill shriek. As Papyrus’s breath ran out, Sans took up the call, his voice lower and quieter but no less eerie. When his voice began to stutter out, Papyrus howled again, and so on for several turns, until between their voices and the strange echo it sounded as if there was a whole pack of the bone monsters calling to each other.

Alphys hung back, uncertain what was happening, but unwilling to disturb it. Her lightning had no place in this winter magic. Maybe, when all this was worked out, she would ask Undyne if any of the Royal Guard’s canine division was looking to adopt. If the brothers worked magic like this, they’d fit in perfectly in Snowdin.

The thought twisted strangely in her chest, but she had no time to investigate it. The howling died away to silence, and the wind stilled, leaving only Snowy’s softly-falling snow.

The brothers sat upright and alert, even Sans. Nothing moved but the very end of Papyrus’s tail, twitching quietly through the snow. They seemed to be listening for a reply; none came, and their eyelights dimmed, but not by much.

“Thank you … ” said Snowy, very softly. It turned to Alphys, reaching out a wing. “Eat … later. Thank … you. Doctor … ”

Snowy turned, and trudged back towards the refrigerator room. The snow evaporated as it left, the magic dissipating without a trace. The hall returned to its normal room temperature.

Alphys blinked, wide-eyed. “It’s a pleasure,” she said, though the Amalgamate was long gone. She shook herself, feeling dazed. “Snowy was … coherent? What did you … what did you do?” Alphys rubbed her face. Neither of the brothers seemed to know.

More importantly, they were both beginning to droop. Papyrus was even trembling a little, his head hanging uncharacteristically low. Now that she had a moment to think — Alphys was exhausted, too. And freezing.

“Why don’t we,” she said, her thoughts sluggish, “g-go back to the bedroom? You … look tired.” She smiled weakly. “I — I know I am. How about we, we take a break?”

Sans chirruped, his magic chiming a single bright chord. Papyrus just blinked, looking very suddenly as worn-out as Alphys felt.

“You like that idea?”

Sans nodded, tapping his brother’s scapula with his snout. Papyrus jerked his head up, eyeglow flashing orange so brightly Alphys flinched. Sans only hummed, his magic calm and Patient, until Papyrus’s magic steadied.

Well — plainly they all needed rest, anyway. Alphys turned on her heel, trotting back towards the bed room. The click-clatter of bone on tile followed her, more slowly than before.

She had a lot to think about.

***

The brothers headed instantly for a corner bed, squeezing beneath it rather than climb on top. Alphys didn’t follow them, and clambered onto the one she’d used before. She queued up a few of her favorite Undertube videos on her phone, but her mind was too active for her to pay much attention.

Snowy had spoken. Snowy had spoken a complete sentence. Snowy had, however briefly, solidified into a concrete form, almost like a truly living monster. Alphys had never seen so much progress from an Amalgamate — and she had no idea how the brothers had done it.

It had something to do with that working, she was certain, but it had looked like no healing magic Alphys had ever seen or put to use. The snow, the howling — she shivered at the memory alone, her herbivore instincts prickling. They fit together, but in a way that was deeply frightening for a plant-eater from Hotland.

Snowy had called, with that snowstorm, and the brothers had answered in kind, in a way Alphys never could have. Whether or not they knew, their magic had summoned an illusion of Snowdin’s eternally icy forest. Snowy’s home.

Alphys stopped, staring at the ceiling. The shifting glare of her phone screen illuminated her scales, but the chatter of voices was a dull and distant backdrop to her thoughts.

Snowy’s home. Communication. Connection, memory, family.

“I think,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, “I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.”


	6. Announcement

So ... this hasn't been updated for a while. Partly that's because school (and depression) hit me like an 18-wheeler; partly that's because I've been increasingly unsatisfied with the direction this story has been taking.

Bad news: Doing the overhaul that I want to is going to take time I don't have, and probably won't until after finals in late May.

Good news: I know what changes I need to make, and I know now that I need to do more planning before I start writing.

I don't know that I will pick this up again: I don't want to make any promises I can't keep. But I'm _hoping_ that, come break time, I'll have the emotional energy, time, and space to make the rewrites that I want to, and continue (and ultimately finish) this work.

Thank you all for your patience; you guys are great, and I couldn't have kept this going as long as I did without your support and encouragement. ^^

**Author's Note:**

> Introductory chapter! A screenshot of what life is like for Alphys right about now.


End file.
